This discusses two basic mechanisms that characterize the minimalist approach to language, operation Merge and the locality domain, with emphasis on the interaction between them, which occurs with movement. Labeling plays a crucial role in how the two interact in that unlabeled elements cannot undergo movement, cannot function as interveners, and cannot be targeted by movement. Labeling also provides motivation for movement (given the proposal that the presence of an uninterpretable feature blocks labeling) and deduces the ban on feature-checking movement feeding feature-checking movement. The discussion leads to a contextual approach to the EPP, where satisfaction of the EPP is not tied to a particular position. This in turn is put into a broader perspective involving a move toward contextuality in the grammar in general: the contextuality of syntax is shown to manifest in the locality of movement/islandhood (there are no islands as this notion has been traditionally understood – there are no phrases that by their nature, independently of their syntactic context, disallow extraction), the motivation for movement, structure-building, labeling, and the new conception of the EPP.

This vignette looks at properties of Late Insertion (LI) from the Minimalist Program (MP) point of view. Whereas LI is not a tenet of the MP, and is largely motivated by morphological realizational theories, its effects are derivative of syntactic effects in a way that connects with different parts of Minimalist syntax. LI severs the projection of structures determined by a lexical item’s properties from processes that produce its form and meaning. This is compatible with the MP, which aims for a simple, “minimal,” and abstract syntax, placing the burden on interfaces. LI hypothesizes the presence of two domains in the formation of complex objects, which exhibit systematic sets of interactions and contextual effects on both form and meaning sides. The vignette focuses on the form side, concerning conditions under which morphemes may interact to determine each other’s form: allomorphy. This idea of contextual effects is derivative of syntactic locality effects that connect with the MP’s phase theory. The vignette touches on the issue of LI for functional morphemes versus Root, and how insertion of certain features after syntax in the PF component enriches the output of the syntax.

Phase Theory (PT) is a minimalist approach to the strict cyclicity of derivations. This vignette sketches some of the implications of PT, considering its relevance in adopting the core notions of locality and cyclicity within the Minimalist Program. It also highlights the value of PT as a device for understanding phenomena, such as cyclic movement, ellipsis, locality of operations, the agreement/Case systems, and especially when accounting for crosslinguistic variation. At the same time, it identifies some of the theoretical shortcomings of the original formulation of PT that have become especially evident with the exploitation of the theory for providing a more solid crosslinguistic perspective. This leads to adopt a more dynamic perspective on phasehood that strikes a balance between its core foundational properties and the vast linguistic research within the field.

Agreement and movement phenomena necessitate grammatical mechanisms for the establishment of dependencies, subject to certain locality constraints. This chapter attempts to explicate a procedural approach to locality, which derives syntactic locality restrictions based on the behavior of a “minimal search” procedure in the grammar. It discusses explicit options for the search algorithm underlying “minimal search,” the need to distinguish probe interaction from satisfaction, and the shape of the search space. It describes how versions of this procedural approach can derive a wide range of attested relative and absolute locality effects.

This chapter examines the transformations of the settlement of Morgantina in the sixth and early fifth centuries BCE though Appadurai’s concepts of “locality” and “colonization.” The use of local and imported vessels, particularly within the Four-Room Building’s dining assemblage, alongside inscribed names and other words in Greek and the Sikel language, highlights the overlapping networks with which the people of Morgantina engaged over time. By focusing on ritual and dining assemblages that showcase the adoption and adaptation of imported forms like Lakonian kraters and the endurance of local carinated cups, the dynamic production of locality at Morgantina is situated in broader Mediterranean networks.

Chapter 1 begins by introducing the quantum world as part of the physical world, not in opposition to or separate from the classical world. It then introduces the basic tools needed to work with quantum mechanics, and describes the scope and purpose of this textbook. It discusses how despite its successes, current quantum mechanics lacks adequate explanations for important observed atomic properties, suggesting an incompleteness of the theory. After a brief overview of its main interpretative issues , the chapter concludes with an introduction of the vacuum or zero-point field as the physical element that restores causality and serves to complete the quantum picture by providing a causal explanation of characteristic quantum phenomena.

This chapter considers how mid to late twentieth-century settler poets were reconceptualising place through bringing regionality to the fore, signalling the particularities of colonisation, and a nascent understanding of Country in the interconnectedness of lands, air and waterways. It argues that writers of this period were becoming aware of the sovereign custodianship in evidence around them and the embodied aspects of subjectivity. The chapter includes a discussion of the resonance of colonial violence and reflexive subjectivity that was appearing in the writing of Douglas Stewart, and the impressionistic locality and implication of their own presence in a poem by David Campbell. It analyses how poets such as Randolph Stow and Philip Hodgins navigate forms of discomfort in occupying violated places. The chapter then turns to the mediation on localities and their knowledge systems in the work of Laurie Duggan and PiO before turned to the representation of the littoral and affect in the poetry of Charles Buckmaster, Robert Gray and Robert Adamson. Lastly, it considers the optic poetics of Grace Perry, Jennifer Rankin and Jill Jones.

This chapter reflects on a few crucial terms such as locality and exteriority, arguing from the standpoint that the force of African literature lies in its call to interrogate the very idea of the global and local. Commenting briefly on the early works of two African writers, Chinua Achebe and Assia Djebar, it shows how African literature poses questions about the type of world-making that is underway, namely, who are the beneficiaries and losers in the making and remaking of conceptions of “worldliness”? The essay also speculates on conceptual and theoretical flashpoints that emerge from the encounter between notions of African literature and world literature taken as separate entities. In attempting to recharacterize the theoretical assumptions of “worldliness,” it highlights African writing’s inherent universality, its generalized orientation toward the philosophical, as well as the intersections of terms like locality and universality within African literary criticism.

In this chapter we continue our investigation of hierarchy by looking at head-movement, i.e. how heads of phrases may move and combine. In addition to seeing how this kind of movement works in technical terms, and what the empirical motivation for it is, we also introduce a major locality condition, the Head Movement Constraint. Then we return briefly to the topic of passives, and introduce raising. Finally, we make a first attempt at formulating a general notion of locality which unifies the Head Movement Constraint with a locality condition applying to both passives and raising.

This chapter examines how morphology has been implicated in studies of comparative syntax. A major theme is how different theories define morphology and how such definitions relate to research in morphological theory. I first look at what it might mean to reduce syntactic variation to morphology or the lexicon. While some well-known approaches have relatively little to do with morphology as understood in morphological theory, one of them provides a plausible way of encoding variation in the features of syntactic terminals. I then ask what Distributed Morphology adds to the study of universals and variation, focusing on the PF interface and showing that there are possible universals in this part of the grammar, but they must be sought at an appropriate level of abstraction. Finally, I examine a conception of PF that arises in some Minimalist discussions where it is posited that apparent syntactic variation is driven by the need to have syntactic structures connect with language-external systems. If correct, this would mean much of what has been analyzed as part of the syntax is actually part of the PF component. However, how this can be investigated empirically is an open topic.

Railway infrastructure defines the narrative parameters of two texts by Elizabeth Gaskell: North and South and ‘Cousin Phillis’. Focusing on small-scale interim stations, and the construction of new lines, this chapter examineslogistical options that even dormant railway infrastructure can bring to stories otherwise concerned with being-in-place. This infrastructural reading of North and South focuses on a scene set at Outwood Station, a small but well-connected hinge between North and South. It shows that proximity to physically iterated railway infrastructure reconnects the narrative to a broad system of global exchange and mobility. In ‘Cousin Phillis’, meanwhile, Gaskell’s civil engineer narrator lays both railway lines and plot lines but neither quite coheres into a functioning, connective system. This chapter traces the uneven degrees of narrative integration in Gaskell’s works back to their differing publication intervals, with North and South’s weekly serialisation providing far greater opportunity to situate its local plot within global circulation than the monthly release of ‘Cousin Phillis’.

This chapter focuses on the transformation of rural landscapes in the western Roman Empire during Late Antiquity, analysing shifts in settlement patterns, economic structures and agrarian practices. It highlights the increasing availability of archaeological data over the past two decades, which has reinforced the idea that rural experiences during this period varied significantly across regions. Rather than a uniform decline, the countryside exhibited multiple trajectories, including contraction, reorganisation and, in some cases, expansion. A major theme is the decline of the villa system and the parallel emergence or resurgence of upland settlements and forested regions as integral components of rural economies. This study argues that these changes were not simply responses to political fragmentation but reflected broader socio-economic transformations, including shifts in land ownership, subsistence strategies and local production systems. It also examines the interplay between long-distance trade and localised economies, challenging the notion that rural economies collapsed entirely after the fall of Rome. The chapter further critiques traditional narratives that frame rural change through the binary lens of ‘continuity versus decline’. Instead, it advocates for a more nuanced approach that recognises both persistence and adaptation in late antique countryside economies.

Chapter 4 aims at evaluating the classical parameters of GB Theory from today’s point of view. The first parameters discussed are those concerning S′-deletion, Subjacency, long distance anaphora, the Projection Principle, and nominative Case assignment, which are shown either to refer to obsolete theoretical concepts or to be reducible to other, more basic theories. Then, the discussion turns to those parameters whose epistemological status is still being upheld in Minimalism, that is, those concerning null subject, V-to-T and V-to-C movement, polysynthesis, and overt vs. covert wh-movement, by looking at their respective minimalist reformulations. What emerges from this investigation is that, strikingly, the only traditional parameters here reviewed which still enjoy an independent theoretical status are those which in Chapter 2 have been labeled as Spellout parameters. Moreover, the overt vs. covert wh-movement parameter could well be an exception in this sense. In fact, assuming Richards N. (2010) or an equivalent PF-based account is on the right track, wh-movement pertains to the A-P interface.

This is a reprinting of the famous May 1935 paper in Physical Review by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen. In this paper, the authors argued that the wavefunction fails to provide a complete description of reality unleashing the debate analysed in this volume.

This is a reprinting of Furry’s response to Schrödinger’s cat paper and entanglement papers, as well as Furry’s response to other responses to the EPR paper, especially Bohr’s.